FAS starts with controversial speaker

Paul Rusesabagina spoke in front of a packed Shriver Hall Tuesday night, undeterred by protesters picketing the event. Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered refugees during the Rwandan genocide, was the keynote speaker of the 2008 Foreign Affairs Symposium, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

Throughout the speech, a group of Rwandan men assembled near the steps of Shriver Hall, peacefully protesting against Rusesabagina.

The men passed out fliers denouncing Rusesabagina, in addition to spreading their message by word of mouth.

One such flier explained how Hotel Rwanda, the film inspired by Rusesabagina's life, is not a reality.

The protesters claimed Rusesabagina used the fame garnered him from the film Hotel Rwanda to "promote his revisionist and negationist theories in the U.S. and around the world," according to a pamphlet distributed by the group. Rusesabagina's alleged defense of the architects of the Rwandan genocide was another reason for the protest.

Despite these allegations, Rusesabagina has received international acclaim for his actions and humanitarian efforts, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In his speech entitled "Hotel Rwanda: A Lesson Not Learned," Rusesabagina emphasized the need for communication.

"I believe in the powers of words," Rusesabagina said. "With words you can save people, and with words you can kill people. In other words, words are the best and worst weapons of human beings."

Throughout his ordeal, this power through words has helped Rusesabagina develop agreements with oppressors on many occasions.

During one such event, when the militia commanded Rusesabagina to shoot the "cockroaches," or Tutsi refugees, he handled the situation by saying, "Myself, I do not know how to use guns. I was very honest. If you just give me that gun, I do not know how it works. After two hours of discussion, he let us go to the Diplomat Hotel. On that day, I was scared for the first time and the last time, but I had learned a lesson. I had learned how to deal with evil."

The audience remained attentive and quietly listened to the events and ordeals that Rusesabagina and his friends and family went through. He mentioned how his son did not talk for four days after witnessing "his friend, his [friend's] mother, six of [his friend's] sisters and two neighbors get killed."

Having acquired communication skills working as a hotel manager, Rusesabagina was able to maximize his diplomacy to help shelter and save 1,268 refugees in the Hotel de Mille Collines.

Many who came to see Rusesabagina were interested in what the ex-hotel manager had to say and lauded his efforts to save the refugees who sought his help.

"[Rusesabagina] has always been an inspiration for me," Jack Berger, a sophomore International Studies major, said. "It's amazing what he's done and that he's so powerful to withstand what he did. He's trying to spread his story so that people can understand what's going on. I really think he's a real power in the world and that he needs to be listened to."

Other attendees heard about the event through friends, in addition to watching the Academy Award-winning Hotel Rwanda. Café-Q manager Nick Johnson and graduate student Argie Kavvada thought seeing Rusesabagina speak was a can't-miss opportunity.

"A friend on the committee came by with fliers and said that he was coming," Johnson said. "We own the movie. We know about the story, and we feel that it's a once in a lifetime thing."

Kavvada added, "You can learn so much from what he's saying."

His underlying message throughout his speech was that people must start taking action against atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide.

Rusesabagina feels that Rwanda did not learn from the genocide, but maybe the world might.

"The world is silent. Silence is agreement. Silence is complicity," Rusesabagina said. "The world is silent. We close eyes and ear. We don't see anything."

He then to turned to the youth and asked them to make the world a much better place than it is now.

"Ladies and gentlemen, especially the youth, tomorrow is yours," Rusesabagina said. "Tomorrow the world will be yours, and you are the ones who can shift it. You can shape it the way you want it to be ... It is yours, and you can make it!"